THE WOMEN FROM the Woolwich prison hulk were taken upriver to Blackwall Reach where a four-masted barque, the Cormorant was moored. An almost new vessel, Cormorant was making its first journey to Australia under the command of Captain Arnold Leyland, a part owner of the vessel.
The hold where temporary accommodation had been prepared for the thirty women should have been filled with mining equipment for the copper mines of South Australia but the machinery was now lying in a sunken barge beneath the waters of the Thames estuary, lost in a collision between the barge and a man-o’-war.
The idea of converting the empty hold to accommodate women convicts had been the brainchild of Captain Leyland’s wife, Agnes, who would be accompanying her husband on the voyage. She calculated that not only would it make up for the income lost from the sunken cargo, but could also provide her with an unpaid maid for the journey.
When the convicts clanked their awkward way up the gangway of the Cormorant the members of the ship’s crew stopped work to eye them speculatively. Some of the sailors had served on convict ships before, while others had heard lurid stories of what was considered acceptable behaviour between crew and prisoners on a women’s transport ship.
Captain Leyland’s wife had heard similar tales and was determined there would be no such behaviour on board Cormorant, but the crew had not yet been made aware of her views and commented excitedly on the attributes, imagined or otherwise, of each woman convict as they made their ponderous way onboard.
The youngest of the convicts, Eliza created a particular stir but Agnes Leyland had seen her too – and she had her own plans for this particular convict.
When the women had been lodged in the hold that had been fitted out for them, the chains linking one to another were removed. However, the fetters on wrists and ankles were left in place despite the voluble protests of the women that the restricted movement afforded them made it almost impossible to carry out even the most basic hygiene.
‘They’ll come off only when the ship’s underway and clear of land,’ declared the Cormorant’s mate, who was one of two men removing the convicts’ chains.
He was unfastening the chain from Eliza when he made his statement and now she asked him, ‘When will that be?’
‘We’ll be leaving on tonight’s tide,’ came the reply and he added, ‘Mind you, it’ll be a slow journey downriver, there are a great many ships on the move at the moment but by the time you wake in the morning you’ll know by way the ship’s behaving that you’re at sea. Sometime the day after that you’ll have left England behind – and I don’t suppose any of you will ever see it again.’
‘What do you mean?’ Eliza demanded indignantly, ‘I’m only being sent away for seven years. I’ll be back by the time I’ve come of age.’
There was a chorus of derisory remarks from the other women and as Eliza looked about her defiantly, the mate said, ‘They’re right, young ’un. I’ve been on more than one ship transporting women to Australia, but I’ve never been on one that’s brought any back again. From now on make the most of whatever comes your way and don’t waste your time pining for whatever it is you’ve left behind, you need to accept that it’s gone forever – talking of which, are you the youngest one here?’
‘Yeah,’ Eliza made the reply abstractedly, thinking of what the sailor had said. There had been nothing in her life so far that she would think of with any degree of fondness, but there was apprehension for what the future might hold. Despite the unhappy life which was all she had ever known, she felt uneasy at the thought of never again seeing the streets of East London – but the ship’s mate was talking to her again.
‘Captain Leyland’s wife must have seen you coming on board. She wants me to take you to her, up in the captain’s cabin.’
‘Me? What for?’
‘I don’t know, but when the chains are off everybody else I’ll take you up top and you can ask her yourself.’
Thirty minutes later Eliza climbed awkwardly up the ladder from the convicts’ hold, helped through the hatchway by an eager sailor whose exploring hands went farther than gallantry decreed and earned him a sharp blow from the heavy fetter about her wrists.
The action was seen by a sharp-faced woman in her late forties who immediately snapped at her, ‘I had you brought up here because I thought you might make a suitable maid-servant but if that’s the way you behave…!’
‘If you want a maid who’s going to let every sailor on board do what he wants with her then you’ve chosen the wrong one,’ Eliza said heatedly. Then, aware that she might have thrown away the only chance she had of escaping Cormorant’s prison hold and all that would mean on the long journey to Australia, she added more meekly, ‘It’s because I wasn’t willing to be treated like that while I’m on here.’
‘You injured a man who attacked you?’ The woman seemed shocked and Eliza realised that the reply she made now would be crucial for her. ‘No, I never touched him, because he was master of the household, but I knew he’d try again when he’d had a few drinks, so I took three guineas from the top of his locker so I could get away from him.’
The woman looked speculatively at her for so long that Eliza was beginning to believe her honesty had been a mistake, when the woman said, ‘What was your employment with the man?’
‘It was his wife who took me on. I started work as a kitchen-maid, but Lady Calnan said I’d done so well that she made me a housemaid.’
There was another long pause while the captain’s wife studied her thoughtfully before saying, ‘If you maintain the same attitude towards Cormorant’s crew and are able to keep your hands off things that aren’t yours, you can have a far more pleasant voyage to Australia as my personal maid than any of your fellow convicts. But you so much as put a foot out of line and you’ll find yourself back in the hold. What’s more, I’ll see to it that you have a worse voyage than you could ever imagine. Is that understood?’
Eliza was so elated she attempted to curtsy but was unable to manage it because of her shackled ankles.
Aware of her problem, Agnes Leyland said, ‘I’ll have you unshackled first thing tomorrow morning when we’ve left the river behind. Until then you can go back to the hold, just to remind you of what you can expect if you don’t suit me.’
‘Yes, ma’am, thank you ma’am, but …’
Agnes Leyland had turned away, now she turned back, an irritable frown on her face, ‘What is it, girl?’
‘As your personal maid I’ll need to look the part, ma’am. You wouldn’t be happy to have me serving you dressed the way I am now. Then there’s my sleeping quarters, ma’am. If I go back down to the hold to sleep with the other women they’d have my clothes off my back before the hatch cover was back on and I’d come back up top as lousy as they are. Once I get clean enough to suit you I’d need to stay that way … ma’am.’
Eliza had made a shrewd summing-up of the wife of Cormorant’s captain. She doubted whether Agnes Leyland had ever employed a personal maid before but wanted to exploit the opportunity that had come her way in order to make an impression upon the ship’s officers and crew.
For a few moments Eliza thought she might have gone too far in setting out her needs. After all, she was a convict and possessed no rights whatsoever.
She breathed a silent sigh of relief when Agnes Leyland said, ‘I see you are able to think for yourself, girl – but don’t take it too far. I’ll have one of the sailors go ashore and buy some maid’s clothes before we sail and my husband has a small chart room attached to our cabin, you can sleep in there. Once we’re at sea and you come up from the hold you can have a salt water bath and rinse your hair in vinegar to kill the lice. Then you can wash your convict clothes and keep them by you to remind you of what you are, in case you get any ideas above your station.’
‘You’ll have no cause to ever remind me of that – and thank you again, ma’am.’
Eliza had already taken a dislike to Agnes Leyland, but she was determined that her new ‘mistress’ would never know.